The combat-heavy pixel-platformer Narita Boy is free for the taking for the next two days.
Black Friday week is now in full swing, the sales are flying, and GOG is giving away another game. Today’s offering is Narita Boy, a combat-heavy pixel-platformer that takes place in a digital world inside a 1980s game console.
We thought Narita Boy was quite good when we reviewed it in 2021. “Slicing and dicing through enemies feels punchy, and there are plenty of ways to take out an enemy without spamming the attack button,” we wrote in our 70% review. “Boss fights are more challenging, but not as much as I was expecting. These dramatic encounters feel more about showing off the idea behind the creation rather than being actually difficult. One boss battle I had to dodge a giant mechanical carp in a bathhouse as I surfed on a giant floppy disk—which was pretty fantastic.”
It’s not without drawbacks, of course. The world can be confusing and easy to get lost in, and the graphics are a little too retro in places, which sometimes makes it difficult to tell exits and other room features from general background graphics. Overall, though, it “removes the vapidness of ’80s gaming nostalgia and couples it with an epic fantasy narrative with an earnest core,” which is a pretty solid recommendation in my book, and even more so when it’s free.
The Narita Boy giveaway is part of GOG’s own Black Friday sale, which has deep discounts on all sorts of games and bundles, daily deals (although they seem to be running for two days, so make of that what you will), and publisher collections. As always, my favorite section is the “Deepest Discounts” category, which includes the Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition for less than $1 (it includes the soundtrack, which is worth the price all by itself) and Deus Ex: Invisible War for the same price, if you want to finally see what it’s really like. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is also 85% off, an excellent price on an excellent shooter.
Newer releases are marked down as well, if that’s your thing, although not as dramatically: Cyberpunk 2077 is half price, A Plague Tale: Requiem is 20% off, and Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete Edition is 60% off, among others. As always, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt GOTY Edition is also marked way down, to just a tenner, which is an especially good deal given that the free next-gen update is finally about to arrive. (While you’re browsing, though, don’t forget to double-check to see if Steam isn’t offering an even deeper discount—it’s currently running its own Autumn sale).
Narita Boy will be free on GOG until 9 am ET on November 25. GOG’s Black Friday sale itself will run until 6 pm ET on November 30—and yes, there will be other game giveaways, so you might want to keep an eye on it. For even more deals, be sure not to miss our running list of the best Black Friday PC gaming deals of 2022—it’s everything you need to know about where to spend your money.
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